Your Right to Know

Some Ohioans struggling with mental illness can expect help from $450,000 in grants allocated by
Attorney General Mike DeWine.

The money is going to agencies serving veterans, the elderly and juveniles.

DeWine said yesterday that the money will be used to keep people out of the “revolving-door
effect” in which they “end up in a nonstop cycle of run-ins with law enforcement. We are awarding
these grants in an effort to provide ongoing support for those with mental illnesses and their
families.” He spoke at a meeting of the Attorney General’s Task Force on Criminal Justice and
Mental Illness.

The six grantees were selected by the task force from more than 20 applicants. The money comes
from a 2011 bankruptcy case involving Richland Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Mansfield,
Ohio.

The largest grant of $215,250 went to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency to boost the “Home for
Good” rent-subsidy program that helps people in mental-health courts find suitable housing. Experts
say that lack of housing is a major factor in the risk of reoffending by people with mental-health
issues.

An $82,500 grant went to the Ohio Department of Youth Services to develop a standardized
screening process for juvenile-detention centers and children’s services. Screenings will help
identify youngsters with mental-health problems as soon as they enter the system.

A program to train first responders to spot issues of elderly abuse will be initiated with a
$50,000 grant. It will be operated by the Crime Victims Services Section of the attorney general’s
office.

A $31,000 grant was awarded to the Ohio Supreme Court to provide training for mentors in the
Veterans Courts program. The money will be used primarily for crisis counseling in jails to support
“those released from jail and help stop them from cycling back into the criminal justice system.”
Grants of $25,000 apiece went to the Mercer County sheriff’s office and the Hancock County Alcohol
Drug Addiction and Mental Health Services Board, also to provide jail crisis counseling.

The final grant of $21,238 went to the Ohio Department of Veterans Services to train staff
workers in nonviolent intervention techniques when dealing with disruptive behavior in state
veterans homes in Georgetown and Sandusky, Ohio. An estimated 75 percent of the residents have some
form of mental illness, officials said.